Gently 13 - Gently With the Ladies by Alan Hunter

Author:Alan Hunter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 1974-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS AFTER nine when he garaged the Sceptre at 16 Elphinstone Road, but Mrs Jarvis, his ‘jewel’, had a mixed grill waiting for him on the hotplate. He ate it in the den and drank some rough red wine along with it, propping the late editions around him on cruet, tea-pot and fruit-bowl. This was his habit in the evening, whether the meal was at six or midnight. From his particular problems he withdrew into the wider world reflected here. It was not escape, since his own problems were an aspect of the panorama, but a change of view, a standing back to merge the trees with the wood. The papers gave him a reference, a monitor glance at all cameras. He ate, drank, read and stood at one again with his world.

When Mrs Jarvis had cleared away he selected and filled a large bent pipe, then went to his shelves and after a search located Andre Maurois’ Quest for Proust. Yes, Illiers was Combray. It was a small market town near Chartres. Only a short step from Paris, a step easily taken by an Albertine. A girl of poor family, no doubt, with few prospects in her home town, but with a sturdy pulchritude that would have its value in the great city a few miles distant. How had Clytie Fazakerly and La Bannister picked her up? In the regular way, through an employment agency? In a café on the Left Bank or in Montmartre? At some special establishment catering for Lesbians? He grunted, put the book away and picked up the one he was currently reading. No more of Fazakerly till the morning! At least, the fellow was sleeping outside a cell.

But he’d barely sat down in his consecrated chair when the phone rang on his desk. He went to it and jerked it up with loathing, ready to jump down somebody’s throat.

‘Is that you, George?’

The voice was his sister’s.

‘George, I can’t talk for very long. Geoffrey didn’t want me to ring you at all, but I felt I must . . . he’s in the study with someone.’

Gently lapsed into the desk chair. ‘It’s about young Fazakerly, is it?’ he growled.

‘Yes, Johnny Fazakerly. We know him, George, he’s a nephew of Aunty May Fazakerly’s. And in the paper tonight . . . well, there were headlines. He’s local, of course. That makes it news.’

Gently grimaced. ‘It’s news, period.’

‘But George, what’s happening? Did he do it?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘George, how terrible. I mean, someone we know . . . actually a relative.’

Gently swivelled the chair a degree and fixed his gaze on the stuffed pike. He liked his sister, but there were times when dear Bridget jarred with him a little. To her he was still a small boy playing wilful and incomprehensible games . . .

‘He gave himself up to me this morning,’ he said.

‘What . . . ?’

‘Walked into my office. Gave himself up. Said he wanted me to believe in his innocence because the facts were all against him.

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